


Time Is On My Side

by thecarlysutra



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Cameos, Gen, Pre-Canon, Time Travel, Trick or Treat: Trick, becoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27157294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: Everyone's gotta start somewhere.Title from the Rolling Stones.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Time Is On My Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Verfallen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verfallen/gifts).



  
Bette is born in the winter of 1928. It's the coldest day of the year, and there is ice on the insides of the windows when she finally comes squalling into the world. She makes so much of a fuss that the neighbors come over from next door to make sure everything is all right, and, as her life progresses, she sees no reason to stop. 

*

When the Commission comes for her, it is 1943, the world is at war, and Bette is running a black market on rationed goods. She deals in ration stamps, of course, and nylons and chocolate and penicillin. She can get you pretty much anything you want, given twenty-four hours notice. She is fifteen. 

The woman the Commission sends has skin so dark it almost looks blue, and a sharp, asymmetrical haircut. She is wearing men's clothes, but tailored to her, and in a fabric Bette has never seen before. She lowers her sunglasses, takes in Bette in her pinafore dress and her carefully crafted curls, and she smiles. 

"Want a job?" she asks. 

*

The job at the Commission isn't much different than the one she had before leaving her life. People need things, and she arranges it for them. They need different, more complicated things than nylons and chocolate, but she has more tools at her disposal, so it doesn't matter. She takes to it. The Commission sets her up with an identity and a house in the 1950s. They tried to get her to stay with an older employee to act as her mother, but Bette said unequivocally no, and they end up making her four years older when they fake her papers. 

Time is inconsequential, after all. 

One day, two years into Bette's time at the Commission, someone comes to her and needs something very specific, very special. It's a delicate job, and she's just the one for it. 

AJ's suit is scorched when he walks up to her desk to talk to her. 

"I need two new assassins _yesterday_ ," he says. 

Yesterday's no problem at all. 

*

"The thing is, Mr. Voorhees," Bette says, "is that your particular skill set makes you an invaluable weapon in the hands of someone who knows how to aim it. And we can offer a better perks package than hiding in the woods near some old summer camp. In exchange for ten years of service, a new life—a new you!—wherever and _when_ ever you decide."

He's quiet for a long time. Finally: "Full dental?" 

Bette smiles. 

*

Bette actually is nineteen when her special gift for selecting new assassins starts paying off. First, a promotion, a pay raise. Then, her own office. Then another promotion, more money, and a better office on a higher floor. By the time she's twenty-one, no one calls her Bette anymore. She's simply The Handler. She leaves her old name for her new one the same way she left her life in 1943: Immediately and forever.  



End file.
